
■3 

•3 m 



/?^ 



THANKSGIVING SEEMON, 



DELIVEKED IN COETLAND, N. Y., 



^UaUST 6tli, 1863, 



BY 



REV. I. L. BEMAN. 



ri'HLlSHKl) Fnil THK lil'.XI'.FIT iiF THK LMUKS' VOU'NTEEl! ATI) SOCIETY. 



I>IiIOE---10 CEHSTTS. 



CORTLAND, N. Y. : 

CIIAKI.KS I'. C'lil.K. liODK AND JOB PRINTKR. (iAZHTITF, A.VD HAXNKR OKI'K'K. 
1863- 



J 






OOERESPONDENOE. 



Rev. I. L. Beman : 

Sir — In accordance with the unanimous vote of 
the Congregation who heard your Thanksgiving Sermon, 
the undersigDcd committee at that time appointed, re- 
spectfully solicit a copy thereof for publication. 
Yours, &c., 

RUFUS EDWARDS, 

J. C. POMEROY, 

JAMES S. SQUIRES, 

HORACE A. JARVIS 



Committee. 



Gentlemen of the Committee : 

In compliance with your request, I hereby submit 
to your disposal a copy of the Sermon delivered on the 
National Thanksgiving Day, Aug. 6, 1863. i = 

Respectfully yours, 

IRVING L. BEMAN. 



05~ 



V',t 



SEKMON. 



" If 1 forget thee, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If 
I do not remember thee, let ray tongue cleave to the roof of my 
mouth : if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.'' 

Psalm 137 : 5. G. 

The words of the text amount in substance to a strong, 
imprecatory pledge of religious faithfulness to God, and 
patriotic devotion to that land which is the gift of God. 

The Israelites had been sinful ; had displeased God 
and departed from his laws. As a consequence, they had 
grown timid and imbecile. Their valor had fled ; they 
were not, like their fathers of old, able to conquer giants ; 
they were often and signally defeated ; the fastnesses of 
their hill country no longer availed them against their 
enemies ; they had no Gideon to strike for them with his 
awful battle cry ; they had no Samson warrior to match 
his single arm against the foes' haughty host ; they had 
no boy David to deliver them by a pebble from the 
brook. 

Shalmanezer, with his Assyrian cohorts, had come up 
against them, and carried away many captives to the 
river Gozan ; and then, from the other side, the Egyp- 
tian prince, Pharaoh-necho, had attacked them and slain 
their king at Megiddo ; and finally, came the Babylonish 
monarch, Nebuchadnezzar, hurling his myriads across 
the fords of Jordan, against their devoted land, and car- 
ried away their "mighty men of valor" captives into 



J 



D 



THANKSGIVING SERMON. 



Chaldea, enslaving both old and young; profaned and 
robbed the holy temple, leaving the whole land a wasted 
province ; and for two generations they sat by the rivers 
of Babylon and wept at the memory of Zion. They un- 
strung their harps and hung them on the willows ; their 
voices were choked with the tears ol captivity. 

It was a scene (if national woe, such as the whole 
world has seldom, if ever, afforded. In this 187tli Ps., 
which is but a wail of grief from their })rison-house, we 
have an eloquent example of true religious patriotism. 

The story is quickly told. They were sitting in silent 
woe, weeping at the memories of their native land, when 
their pagan captors came and required a song of Zion. 
j They refused to sing, with the sad remonstrance, " Hoiv 
\can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" And 
then, by these words reminding themselves more intense- 
ly of the far away city, the vine-clad liills, the towering 
\ mountains, the spreading plains and the winding streams 
of dear and s icred Palestine, they burst forth in that 
ghiwing pledge of life-long fealty to God and country, re- 
corded in the text, which may thus be paraphrased : " 
Jerusalem, holiest spot of eajth, if we so far forget thee 
as to touch thy harp-strings in this land of captivity, may 
our right hand be palsied ! If we do not so faithfully 
remember thee as never to undertake thy songs save in 
thee, our God's abode, our fathers' home, may our tongues 
be paralyzed !"' 

The Jews had country and church both in one. With- 
out one, they were without the other. In the Temple at 
Jerusalem only, could they legitimately offer sacrifices. 
There only, could the Levitical choir assemble to chant 
the Psalms of David. There only, could they congregate 
on the days of the great national feasts. There was their 
birth-place, there all childhood memories clustered, there 
were the battle-fields of their valiant sires, there were 



e 



THANKSGIVING SERMON. 



the graves of their kindred. There rested the hones of 
Joshua and Gideon, Othniel and Samson, Jonathan and 
David, the patriarchs and prophets ; all their holy, wise 
and mighty men. That was the land not only of Promise, 
but of inheritance. Sacred Palestine ! It was both 
church and country to them ; they could take neither 
away. The old hills were immovable, and so the "City 
of the great King!" The worship of God in accordance 
with His commands and in Jewish grandeur, could not 
be rightly conducted elsewhere. 

The wine from other vineyards was not sanctified ; the 
flocks of other liills were not acceptable sacrifices ; the 
fruits of other soils were not holy offerings. The Theo- 
ciatic principles of government were to be enjoyed and 
practiced no wheie on eartli, save on the other side of 
Jordan, in Canaan's spreading plains. They had dared 
the Red Sea, and from its wilderness shore looking back, 
had beheld it engulf their Egyptian masters; they had 
toiled miraculously through the desert, drinking from 
Marah and the Rock, eating quails and manna, and lea- 
ving tlie bones of their fathers bleaching there, to gain 
that blest asylum And, reaching the land of Promise, 
there they had fought and conquered, reigned and pros- 
pered, for a period of more than eight hundred }ears. 

But now, in a foreign realm, enslaved, without a coun- 
try, without a religion, their sacred places profaned by 
stranger's feet, and their sacred vessels sacrileged by im- 
pious lips, they were required to sing a song of Zion ; to 
kindle the burning measure of Divine praise, and pour 
upward to an injured Lord the rich and stately anthems 
from sad and exiled hearts. 

Is it strange then, that they should refuse, and pledge 
themselves so solemnly to never forget the fatherland ? 
Could the pride of such a glorious history be broken so 
easily, and the crimson blush of so many splendid victo- 



THANKSGIVING SERMON. 



ries pale so soon ? Could the right of Promise, the right 
of Divine bequeathment, the right of the Conqueror, and 
the right of possession, in all those broad plains and 
grand mountains, be forfeited and forgotten so quickly? 
Could they now, by singing a holy song in unholy Baby- 
lon, volnntu'ily pui their necks beneath the oppressor's 
heel, and thereby confess they had no God and no coun- 
try ? No! By the memory of their majestic past, by the 
memory of all their valiant deeds and triumphant cam- 
paigns, by the memory of all their mighty and holy men, 
by the memory of tlieir deserted hearthstones and Tem- 
ple, and by their huije in God for all the future — No I 

No base submissionists were they. They could be de- 
feated, but never subdued ; enslaved, but never degra- 
ded ; oi'ushed, but not destroyed. They were beaten, 
they had unstrung their harps, they wept ; yet were stern 
and inflexible in their ])atiiotism and faith. 

Now, what of America and American patriotism and 
faith in this dark crisis of her history ? Shall we ever 
sing the hallowed airs of Columbia in a strange land, or 
in our own land humbled and abased ? 

The Amerian people have something such a history as 
had the Jews. TIku left Egypt because of bondage, 
daring the sea to escape. Our forefathers left the Old 
World because of bondage, religious intolerance ; because 
their consciences were dictated, their rights restricted ; 
and thf-y coped with the s ronger storms of a wider sea 
in the angry mood of winter. 

The Jews struggled through the Arabian wilderness 
for nearly h df a century. .Our Puritan fathers, when 
they had crossed the sea, found themselves also in a wil- 
derness, the terrors and difficulties of which they man- 
fully grappled and subdued : and let the early graves in 
Massachusetts, that Matron of the States, which the 
vicious would eject from the Union to wMch she gave 



THANKSGIVING SEBMON. 

birth — let those early graves, filled by cold, weariness, 
starvation and the tomahawk, witness to the sturdy 
christian manhood they possessed. 

The Jews went forth to a land where they might estab- 
lish a government with God at its head, eternal truth and 
inalienable rights its foundation. So the Pilgrims came 
to found a nation on the same everlasting principles, 
having no restrictions of conscience, no limitations of 
birth rights and natural equalities; a nation with no 
sceptre to come between them and God. 

The J«ws did not possess their inheritance except by 
bloody wars. So our fathers in the Revolutionary strug- 
gle, rushing from hillside and valley, waded in blood, 
leaving their red footmarks on the snows of Valley Forge 
and along the icv road to Trenton's sanguine field. 

As the Israelites had the proud memories ot Ai, Eglon 
and Kishon, so have we the glories of Bunker Hill, York- 
town andLundy's Lane. i\.s they had a Joshua, a Barak and 
a Gideon, so we have a Washington, a Warren and a Put- 
nam. They had more than eight hundred years' posses- 
sion in Canaan, while we can number but eighty-seven 
since the old bell in Philidelphia rung out our Indepen- 
dence in 177(3; but while they Had increased only to 
some three millions, we have grown, since Miles Standish 
set his foot on Plymouth Rock, from a few hundreds to 
thirty millions; thus equalling in stature what we lack 
in years. And while they had become a j^ower of only 
second rate, which w^as utterly broken by a neighboring 
monarch who carried them into captivity, we have ex- 
panded into a stalwart nation, and with God's smile upon 
a righteous cause we can defy the world. 

Our Institutions are as sacred as were those of the He- 
brews. Every patriot believes they are the gift of God, 
as much as theirs ; they were christened by as sacred 
blood, that of our fathers ; they were dedicated to God 



J 



THANKSGIVING SERMON. 



and humanity by the " Declaration of Rights." These 
Institutions are our priceless 2)atrimony. In education, 
invention, agriculture, commerce, conscientious living, in 
our social system, in beneficent and philanthropic enter 
prise, in all secuhir advancement, and hence in all reli- 
gious attainment ot which secular enterprise is the ser- 
vant, we are leading the old Jews by the breadth ot 
shining ages. 

Our country and our church are as necessary to each 
other as were their's. Though not united as among the 
Jews, in no evil sense combined, giving no ojjportunity 
whatever for the invidious influences of priestcraft ; yet 
essential to each other, since it is under the wide dome ot 
these free Institutions that the church has liberty to 
grow and sti'cnotlien in her proper sphere ; and it is by 
the preserving, leaven-like presence of the Christian 
church, that these Institutions are and must be perpetu- 
ated. The Divine ideas that underlie and constitute the 
church of Christ, gave birth to, and have since })reserved, 
the nation; vvhile the nation, as a republican form of 
government, is the rightful protector ot the church. 

Here only, of all the nations of the earth, Tlieocratic 
Jewry in her palmiest days not excejjted, is man fully 
his own king under God, obeying tlie dictates of his 
own conscience, appointing from among the people his 
own legislature, judiciary and executive, and thus govern- 
ing himself in thought, in worshij^, in sjDeech and in all 
supposable action ; having moreover, a free press, free 
soil and free labor. 

But shall this comparison be continued ? Shall it run 
forward by the ferocity of treacherous rebels, aided by 
the yet baser action or inaction of concealed traitors at 
the North and the fiendish work of mobs, until we shall 
sit. as did weeping Israel, by the rivers ; save that it shall 
be by our own rivers, our Connecticut, our Hudson, our 



THANKSGIVING SERMON. 



Susquehanna, our Ohio and our Mississippi ; enslaved, 
fettered, degraded ? We have carried up the comparison 
as far as completed history will permit ; and now shall 
we, by imbecile recreancy, permit our history and their's 
to run parallel any farther ? Men and brethren, the aw- 
ful Thermopylae in which we stand impresses this ques-i 
tion. It appeals to you who wear the Federal blue; toi 
you whose sons or brothers are in the field, or hospital,! 
or under the sod ; to you who by your influence through ' 
action or word are helping to sustain or destroy. Shall I 
our history run a farther parallel with that of the scat-i 
tered and disgraced Jews ? When the cruel hands, 
clutching at the throat of the government, shall succeed ; { 
when the sly enemies now working so insidiously at the | 
North, like the fox the Spartan boy hid under his plaid 
till it gnawed into his vitals, shall gain what they seek ; 
then shall we have no country in any broad, true signifi- 
cation whatever ; and then no liberties ; and then no 
church as a free religious system. When we are beaten 
the very springs from which we drink will flow through 
Confederate fetters ere they reach the sea by Southern 
outlets, symbolizing our thoughts and purjioses which 
then cannot pour out into deeds save through shackles. 
Success to the insurgents is death to our nation, and 
hence thraldom to the individuals who compose the nation. 
Any lack of entire final triumph to our Administration, 
any cowardly concession or iniquitous compromise, will 
strike the death blow to our Republican institutions, for 
it will destroy the vital principles of these institutions — 
the Elective Franchise. The beginning — not the cause — 
but the signal for the first shot in this war, was the the 
election of the present Chief Magistrate by the constitu- 
tional ballot of the people. If now we fail, and the felo- 
nious instigators of the war succeed in securing conces- 
sion or compromise of any kind —even to their lives, or 



J 



10 



THANKSGIVING SERMON. 



choice of the way in which they shall be executed — it 
undermines the supremacy of the ballot box, and here- 
after subjects to the decision of arms every election 
whereby an unprincipled minority is displeased. We 
become then a military despotism ; anarchy prevails ; 
Might usurps the throne of Right; Right is exiled, and 
we have really no country. 

Now what does country mean? Primarily, to the 
American citizen, it means self-ownership. It means 
possession of our individual, domestic rights to home, 
family, wives, children, sisters, parents ; these which are 
ours under God and not another's in any possible sense. 
Secondarily, it means self-government through the pro- 
per, legal, civil — or if need be, military — channels. Coun- 
try, this Country, as our fathers fought for and founded 
it, means just what God gives to every man, and which 
no earthly power can rightfully remove: rights, which, 
by the "Declaration of Independence" and by the Divine 
will and Word, should belong to all,' black or white, rich 
or poor, educated or ignorant, and which every man of 
spirit esteems dear as life. Country! It is these free 
hills where you gather the })roducts of your own labor; 
these wide valleys from which God lets you garner such 
plenteous harvests ; these happy streams and every ma- 
chine which they propel, yielding manufactures for free 
men. It is these streets, stores and offices where you 
drive your flourishing trade ; the mines, mints and quar- 
ries where our laboi-ers toil ; the railroads and canals, 
the rivers, lakes and seas, whereon our travelers and com 
merce ride. It means the reading matter which you 
take from the post office, and the countless volumes that 
crowd the shelves of all the libraries in the land. It 
means the Lecture room and the platform of the Lyceum. 
It means every school house from Maine to Oregon, with 
the throngs of gay children coming up to carry this Re- 



/^^ 



THANKSGIVING SEKMON, 



11 



publican cosmos on their shoulders. It means your 

Academy, and every other academy and college from ' 
Harvard to Ann Arbor. It means your last evening's ' 
quiet hour of domestic worship; the free Bible which j 
lays on your table at home and on these village pulpits. 
It means the opinions which you hold and utter untram- 
meled, where you will : these churches where you come 
at your freedom to hear, and where the clergy speak as 
we conscientiously think God permits and requires, unlet 
and unhindered of men. It means the ballot box where 
you exercise your royal sovereignty, and the jury where 
you seek redress for grievances. It is the place of your 
birth, whether in hut or palace ; and the graveyard 
where, with your fathers' ashes, your own will sleep in 
God's due time. It is everything dear and sacred ; liber- 
ty, life, fortune, honor, enlightenment, happiness. 

And if th'is be our country, and the utter ruin of this 
what the foe seeks, cannot we repeat the text as our 
own ; cannot we pour into it the same intensity as did 
the captive Israelite in the willow shade by Babylon's 
river ? Truly, we are not captives yet ; we are not weep- 
ing by the enemy's rivers ; but what matters the difie- 
rence ? Look at the bleeding country ; see how sore her 
need of unconditional, uncomplaining devotion ; note 
how all across the land, by ten thousand hearthstones, sit 
mothers and sisters, wives and orphans, and white-haired 
sires whose trusty staves are broken, shedding tears 
which cannot be stAyed, for their noble dead slain in this 
terrible strife. And for this reason every dead soldier 
boy, every rent in the old Banner, every stain on our na- 
tional honor, becomes an argument for patriotic devotion. 
The Country for which have died your kindred and mine, 
for which such enormous sacrifices of treasure have been 
made, is thereby the more beloved. The more it has or 
shall cost, the more it is worth to all true men and reali 



12 



THANKSGIVING SERMON. 



patriots. Every rebel in arms ; every brutal, Popish mob 
doing its horrible, rebellious work ; every seditious disci- 
ple of Vallandigham ; and every disloyal Northerner aid- 
ing t!ie foe by whatever influence, is an incentive to higher 
devotion and greater sacrifice to the land of our fathers. 

Could I call together in one great throng the mill ons 
of patriots North, and administer to them anew the oath 
of allegiance, it should be tlie text Americanized, " If 1 
forget thee. America, my beloved Country, let my right 
hand di'op pulseless in death. If I do not remember thee, 
and prefer thee above all joys, let my tongue be foiever 
silent." The hour is here when every patriot is chal- 
lenged to this resolve, if he would witness the triumf)li of 
freedon^ and tlie salvation of the gover-nment. No com- 
mon patriotism like that of recent years will avail ; such 
a spirit is required as that which prompted the signers of 
the "Declaration of Indei)endence," when Charles Car- 
roll distinguished himself for the rope of" King George" 
by a special appendage to his signature. 

This is Country, our guardian and our protege. Thig 
is what they who instituted and crowd on the Rebellion, 
seek to destroy. At the breast of the Republic they have 
been fostered. Their military leaders were made, with' 
out cost to them, at our schools ; their statesmen acquired 
their skill in the places of national trust; their arms, 
forts, ships, and means by which to prosecute the insur- 
rection, were mainly stolen from the Government. The 
protection they have enjoyed in their domestic circles, in 
amassing their fortunes, in every advancement made oj 
i blessing bestowed, in chaffering with and degrading their 
; better brethren the slaves, they have received from the 
Federal Government. By Southern Presidents, or Nor- 
thern Presidents with Southern principles, by such Cabi- 
net officerg as they chose to appoint, by total sway in all 
branches of the Federal Government, they have held do- 



yJtrz 



THANKSGIVINa SERMON. 



13 



minion for fifty six out of eighty-seven years. They have 
battened on the spoils of office ; tliey have grown insolent 
and imperious by the long use and abuse of power and 
privilege. Tliey have bought with millions of Federal 
money, conquered by Federal arms or acquired by diplo- 
macy and corruption in the halls of Congress, State after 
State and Territory after Territory, to secure entire sway 
by the extension of s'avery : while the North and freedom 
have not expended one dollar, fought one battle, or con- 
ducted one successful struggle in the Congressional forum, 
to acquire one acre of territory, or an iota of power. 

Now. it is against this, their Mother, their indulgent 
Benefactor, their obsequious servant for half a century, 
they have raised their murderous hands; hands slimy with 
the vileness of their amalgamations, and red with the blood 
of their hel|)less, black victims. 

It is not enough that they have had precedence for so 
long a period; they would destroy the Government which 
has protected and exalted, pampered and enriched them : 
not enough that they have enslaved four millions of their fel- 
low men in the grossest bondage the world has ever known, 
and that they iiave degraded to almost equal abasement 
more than two millions of the " poor white trash ;" but 
now they would make a whole nation cringe — they would 
humble at their feet twenty millions more! 

There are men who cry '" compromise ;" parties who 
profess to be the constituted guardians of this people, 
though they are the boon companions of the enemy ; like 
wolves, claiming to be the protectors of the flock, while 
their jaws drip blood. Their disciples walk in phrensied 
riot, crazy with incendiarism, robbery and pillage ; turn- 
ing orphans into the streets ; murdering women and 
children, and negroes who have neither votes nor influ- 
ence ; and even burning the mangled dead in wanton 
ferocity. 



14 



THANKSGIVING SERMON. 



Men and brethren, where is our manhood, whjre our 
christian boldness and purity, where our pati-iotism and 
where our safety in the future, if at the cry of such submi - 
sionists we are ready to compromise witli such a foe ? The 
very sources whence issue these peace projects are tlie 
strongest aryuments against complicity with tlseni in hold- 
ing out the olive to the rebels. Have all the battles since 
Lexington and Concord, all the noble blood spilled by our 
warriors, all the superhuman effort expended by our states- 
men, all the treasure employed, amounted to a mere expe- 
riment, that now we can so basely talk of compromise with 
outlaws and traitors ? There is no couipromise. There 
is surrender, there is truckling to wrong, there is ex- 
changing honor for shame, bartering our birthright for a 
mess of pottage : but there is no compromise. The strug- 
gle is between antagonistic principles — principles that 
cannot be united. One may become mustei- with lash in 
hand, the other a cringing slave, but they arc foes still. 
Though associating in this relation they never can be har- 
monized. It is brute force directed by wicked cunning on 
the one hand, and on the other the sublime, mental and 
moral qualities of regenerate manhood lisingto tueir pro- 
per sphere. When men form a fabric and call it govern- 
ment, it becomes the arena of contest botween the bi'utal 
and the humane. Two armed instincts marshal for bat- 
tle; one the independent, broadly philanthropic, manly, 
humanizing ; the other the coarse, selfish, heartless, bruta- 
lizing. One believes in man and man's God ; the other's 
creed is self. One is from above ; the other from beneath. 
One says "Might is Servant, Right a master divine ;" the 
other says '' Might is Right, let it rule because :t can." 
One is the doctrine of our Northern civilization ; the 
other the hellish fallacy of their Southern barbarism. 
The former principle regards humanity as Pharaoh's 
daughter did the infant deliverer of Israel; a beinofoffair 



^^/ 



THANKSGIVING SEKMON. 



15 



feature, lovely form and mighty promise, and rears it up- 
ward toward its gr eat estate: the latter views mankind 
as carnivora do their prey, and hesitates at no meanness 
by which to drink the blood; its adherents " confedera- 
ting for that purpose as wolves hunt m packs," rushing 
among the tiock, not in the broad daylight of Christianity,! 
I but under the pall of ignorance and intolerance. The for-' 
I mer believes in progress and reform ; changing the adap- 1 
i tations of men. lifting them up and fitting them for higher 
:sphei"es, and helping them onward toward the glory of 
perfect manhood : the latter believes in low, unalterable 
.adaptations, leaving the slave a slave, the ignoramus an 
■ ignoramus, the poor, groaning ones of God poor and gi'oan- 
ing forever ; hitching them by iron cables to the post of 
the l)i'iue; wliipping them back to their spheres, by ci uel 
lashes riglit across the face, if by better aspirations they 
aie actuated to struggle upwai-d to any heaveiilier level. 
I When right and wrong ai-e thus battling, when God seems 
shaking a nation in order to purify and equalize it, one 
says "go forward and do God's will,'" — while the other 
lories "hold still, compromise.'" Now liere is an eternal 
antagonism. Not until elements and principles, origina- 
^ ting with and sanctioned by God. can be changed into 
wrong, can our efforts be justly abated. Any conscien 
tious man who will observe the character and history of 
this struggle from its beginning thirty years ago, when 
Calhoun began to set his political party on fire with tlie 
doctrine of State riiihts, in direct opposition to the princi- 
ples of the Convention of 1787 which framed the Cousti- 
.tution, must perceive that it is the envenomed thrust of 
joligarchists to save themselves, by the destruction of uni- 
versal liberty. It is the great death throe of either free- 
dom or slavery in America. Conquer or perish, then, must 
< be our motto. It is the divine responsibility laid upon us : 
;we cannot evade it. It is bound upon us with the very 



16 



THANKSGIVINO 8ERMOX. 



bands that hold our manhood to vs. Tins conflict is the 
coming to blows of the princi-ples which lauded on Ply- 
mouth Rock in the hearts of the Mayflower Pilgrims, and 
from the Dutch ship, which the same year landed a cargo 
of slaves on the banks of James river^ near Richmond. It 
is then, Plymouth Rock against James river ; may the 
Rock turn the river. May Boston stand when Richmond 
is in ashes; may the principles they respectively represent 
and entertain meet the same fate. May human bondage 
disappear at once and forever ; New England liberty 
cover the earth. 

There is no use in arguing that the North began the 
conflict, or sought it, or is in fault for it. Such arji:ument 
excuses the meanest creatures on earth, wliose guilt is 
only second to Satan; the murderers of the innocents in 
New York the other day, of my kindred who fell at Ft. 
Philips and Shiloh, Centerville and Harper's Ferry, of 
such chrisiian patriots as Gkover. whose voice, preaching 
the Gospel, is hardly husiied in this sacred house. He 
who argues thus, manifests his servile sympathy with the 
South. For many years the South has stood with sword 
half drawn, compelling us with bowie knife, pistol and 
bludgeon, to all manner of concession ; till at last, driven 
to the direst extremity by the cannon that reduced Sum- 
ter, we turned at bay, standing on all that was left us, the 
naked principles of the Constitution and the mere fact of 
existence. Then we could have permitted secession ,•' but 
would thereby have branded ourselves cowards, and sur- 
rendered the glorious championship for the human race, 
admitting that Republicanism is an impossibility. We 
should have been, as we ought, the hissing of the earih ; 
a stench and shame to every independent man through all 
time. We took up the gauntlet ; have fought over two 
years ; have offered upon the altar of Country, let histoiy 
say how much. 



C' 



THANKSGIVING SERMON. 



17 



Shall v^e now compruraise? No! We must not at- 
tempt it, unless we would become the offscouring of the 
earth ; the apostate of civilization and humanity; the Ju- 
das Iscariot of the nineteenth century. 

A lull of arms may be contrived, but it will be neither 
a real compromise nor a just peace. The " good Book" 
says "Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other;" 
but grim Unrighteousness may never come so near that 
holy maiden, Peace. If the war was right on our part in 
the outset, it is right now, and will be till the Rebellion is 
subdued. If it was wrong in the beginning, the constitu- 
tional election of a President is wrong, and we must repu- 
diate the Constitution and all that has ever been done in 
accordance therewith. Then self-defense against pirates 
is wrong. Then human bondage, the root and virus of the 
insurrection, is right, and Liberty is an evil. Then the 
strong may do God service by enslaving and debasing the 
weak. Then we ought to have let the "wayward sisters," 
drunk with their oppressions and black with their harlot- 
ries, "depart in peace;'' while we stood, the gaunt, un- 
crowned, sceptrcless coward among nations. But no ; — we 
know our cause is right — right when Warren fell at Bun- 
ker Hill — right when Ellsworth was murdered at Alexan- 
dria — right now. We cannot ultimately be defeated ; 
this people must not fall. We are ready to gird on our 
fathers' swords, by enlistment or by draft, and on our 
fathers' ancient Bibles swear, " It cannot, must not, shall 
NOT BE." We shall succeed because our Government is 
righteous ; because in the past it has colt so much ; be- 
cause in the future it will be worih so much. It is God's 
> ■ 

especial charge among the nations ; it answers the long- 
ings of the enslaved world. 

Would that the freemen of the North were men of less 
noise and theory, but more thought, higher devotion, 
sterner resolves ; silent, yet desperate ; putting their pre- 



18 



THANKSGIVING SERMON. 



tensions and complainings into practical, terrible force, 
until the whole world should stand aghast at the tremen- 
dous power of a determined people, and tlie Crowned 
Heads who hanker for our destruction should fear our 
invincible might. When this nation, through every voice 
by which it can reach the Presitlent's ear, shall say, "' Go 
on, Abraham Lincoln, draft, emancipate, confiscaie, make 
negro soldiers, do what your wisdom devises, and we. 
while praying for you at your request, will bear you 
through," — then we shall win a Country of which we may 
consistently sing, "Land of the free and home of the 
brave." Then we shall conquer a peace which will abide, 
since it will not have hidden underneath the elements of 
diecord and i-apine; and God will give us a cliuich which 
will afford an uni-estricted conscience, an unmolested wor- 
ship and an untrammeled pulpit. When that chant, " We 
are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand 
more" — now but a burlesque because of the draft — shall 
become, " We are going, God of battles, to vindicate the 
Right," — we may expect the trump of Jehovah to sound 
the charge, and we shall wring victory from the traitorous 
hand cf the foe. Italy is wheeling into freedom's line ; 
Hungary is restless in her chains ; Poland is again putting 
on the divine crown of Liberty ; Russia's thirty million 
serls are fast becoming men ; then let America lead the 
world's van, fulfilling her royal destiny. 

Friends, I have endeavored by these remarks to bring 
your minds to a proper frame for this special Thanks- 
giving. 1 deem it not my duty to render thanks in your 
stead, but by unfolding our Country's worth, move your 
hearts to personal gratitude for the growing signs of de- 
liverance. What special reasons are there then, for 
Thanksgiving ? 

1st. The enforcement of the righteous emancipation 
policy. 



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THANKSGIVING SERMON. 



19 



2d. Making soldiers of Negroes ; the favorable solu- 
tion of the problem wiiether they will fight, and tlieir pro- 
tection as other soldiers. 

3d. An Administration with stamina to enforce a draft. 

4th. The failure of- the Riots devised to aid the Rebels, 
and the exposure of the disloyal purposes of compromising, 
peace-pleading Northerners. 

5th. The victory of Gettysburg and tlie ex])ulsion of 
the foe from Northern soil. 

6th. The capture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, and 
final opening of the Mississippi. 

Vth. The capture of Morgan and his raiders, together 
with more than twenty smaller victories. 

8th. The possession or parole of more than seventy-five 
thousand Rebel prisoners, and general demoralization of 
all tlieir armies. 

And finally, the probable speedy fall of Charleston, the 
hot-bed of Secession fallacies, demands both our prayers 
and praises. May its capture be the nominal close, as it 
was the nominal beginning, of the terrific strife! 

For all these great and undeserved blessings we render 
thanks to Almighty God. " Oh magnify the Lord with 
"me, and let us exalt his name together." 

And, though this is an occasion of Thanksgiving, we 
cannot forget the wounded and sick, and the thousands I 
who mourn our valiant dead. May a merciful Heavenly 
Father visit them with divinest consolation. 



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